I purchased 90/10 ground beef last week and it had grey strips of ground meat going through the center. It didn't have an off odor or any sliminess to it. I used the meat around it to no ill effects but today I went to the same place and purchased some more. Guess what...same thing. I'm thinking of taking it back but I wonder if this can be a normal occurrence. Who has a clue?

Meat can turn grey in a few hours. I grind beef every week for our hamburgers. We have to work fast after grinding to make patties, otherwise they will discolor. We sell a line of gourmet burger patties that are cryovac and frozen. They have to be as fresh looking as possible. The meat is fine, but people want red looking meat. They associate that with freshness, I guess..

You'll often see at places like WalMart they have prepackaged ground beef (not ground in store), the meat in the pack will be very thin with lots of surface area in a package filled with gas to keep it nice and red for a long time. Usually fresh ground stuff will be a lump on a styrofoam tray and will be a bit discolored even if it was ground that day.

Many stores these days only keep their in store gound beef for about 24 hours, it wouldn't hurt to ask what their shelf life is.

There always is the possibility that it could be rewrapped, new mixed with old to look nice in the package. This can happen when you have a meat crew that is put under a lot of pressure to reduce shrink by management in a slow store. If your store always looks busy than this is very unlikely to happen.

I look for ground beef that looks like it is out of the extruder, you can easily see the long strands of ground beef, since they hold the tray at the extruder. If it looks mixed up and a little too uniformly "mixed" on the tray, than it could very well be mixed.

I returned the ground beef telling them this was the 2nd time in 2 weeks. The customer service said it probably had been exposed to air, making it turn color. I said the equivalent of fine, I will buy my ground beef at abc store where I have never had that problem. She stopped herself short by saying "why did you buy the 2nd...you have a nice day!"

I returned the ground beef telling them this was the 2nd time in 2 weeks. The customer service said it probably had been exposed to air, making it turn color. I said the equivalent of fine, I will buy my ground beef at abc store where I have never had that problem. She stopped herself short by saying "why did you buy the 2nd...you have a nice day!"

I wouldn't continue to shop at a store that has that attitude. I wonder if the store manager or owner knows she is not bending over backwards to please the customer. Losing a customer completely is hard for a retail grocery, where there is so much competition. And if that customer spreads the word to other customers, they may lose them, too.

I wouldn't continue to shop at a store that has that attitude. I wonder if the store manager or owner knows she is not bending over backwards to please the customer. Losing a customer completely is hard for a retail grocery, where there is so much competition. And if that customer spreads the word to other customers, they may lose them, too.

Or it could be that this worker had a particular rough day with customers, some of us are better at dealing with them than others. I've had co-worker that could keep smiling even through the toughest customers. The only customer that broke her was when she was 9 months pregnant working at a register, the second customer in line got mad that she wasn't moving fast enough and threw an onion at her and caught her in the eye.

Looks like this customer service clerk knew that she was overstepping and shut up half way through the statement, one that she should have kept to herself in the first place.

I certainly agree that onion wielding customers are an entirely different story!

Some people think that any person can work at the customer service desk, but it must be someone who can talk sweetly to the customer and hold their tongue, even when having to tell the customer, no. I quit working retail because I wanted to throw things at customers but knew I would get fired if I did.